Pages

About Me

I live and blog in Ann Arbor, Michigan. University of Michigan BA and MA from Eastern Michigan University. One term in the Michigan Army National Guard. The Institute of Land Warfare, Army magazine, Infantry Magazine, Military Review, Naval Institute Proceedings, and Joint Force Quarterly have published my occasional articles. See "Published Works" on the web version for citations.

The Undead Archives

My undead archives pre-Blogger were actually restored to life after Geocities sites went dark. Start at the old home page here.
If you find a link to the old site on the current site or old site, you should be able to replace the "g" in "geocities" with an "r" and make a good link.
Another archived site is here.
It replaces the ".com" with ".ws".
I hope to move all the older archives here (and started that project) but it is really tedious.

Wednesday, July 19, 2017

Another Problem Child

I've certainly noted many times that Pakistan is a problematic ally, hopes for a virtuous cycle to break that attitude notwithstanding. But I also note that if Iran was as good a friend as Pakistan is we'd call our Iran policy actual Smart Diplomacy. Turkey had joined the ranks of problem children. Work the problem rather than push Turkey into Russia's orbit.

I don't like this given Turkey's behavior the last 15 years or so as it has tilted Islamist:

Turkey has agreed to pay $2.5 billion to acquire Russia’s most advanced missile defense system, a senior Turkish official said, in a deal that signals a turn away from the NATO military alliance that has anchored Turkey to the West for more than six decades.

The preliminary agreement sees Turkey receiving two S-400 missile batteries from Russia within the next year, and then producing another two inside Turkey, according to the Turkish official, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.

In the latest display of Turkish anger at U.S. policy in Syria, the state news agency has divulged the locations of 10 U.S. military bases and outposts in northern Syria where the U.S. is leading an operation to destroy the so-called Islamic State in its self-styled capital of Raqqa.

If Turkey was a solid friend, I'd see this arms deal with Russia as potentially a way to get deep insights into the S-400 system.

But that's not the situation. Now I worry that Russia will have the edge in information gains by getting insights into how NATO air defense systems and procedures work.

I'd rather not do that and simply push Turkey away from NATO. I'd rather have an imperfect ally than an imperfect foe that is now an imperfect asset of a foe.

With Russia's efforts to establish a military presence in the eastern Mediterranean Sea (to extend a buffer south and west of the Black Sea, supported by the Crimean base area), a friendly Turkey that can choke Russia's sea line of communication from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean is obviously a big deal.

So I don't want to push Turkey away despite Turkey's inadequacies as a treaty ally. Enforce that standard too hard and how many allies will we still have?

But I do hope that we are selling Turkey a monkey model of the F-35 that lacks the best technology that I don't want a shaky Turkey sharing with their new friends the Russians.

Although it would be kind of funny if Turkey is getting an inferior version of the S-400.

“As a program partner, Turkish industries are eligible to become suppliers to the global F-35 fleet for the life of the program. In total, F-35 industrial opportunities for Turkish companies are expected to reach $12 billion,” the warplane’s website explained. “Turkey plans to purchase 100 of the F-35A Conventional Takeoff and Landing variant. Its unsurpassed technological systems and unique stealth capabilities ensure that the F-35 will be the future of Turkish national security for decades to come.”

But is the F-35 safe with Turkey?

I wouldn't trust the Turks to service my F-35s. I hope Turkish industrial participation involves making the cup holder.

The United States will withhold $50 million remaining in military reimbursements to Pakistan for fiscal year 2016 because Defense Secretary Jim Mattis believes that Islamabad has not done enough to blunt the Islamist militant Haqqani network, a U.S. official said on Friday.

StatCounter

Search This Blog

Note on site statistics: When I strip out the junk hits from Blogger statistics that seem to come and go in waves, I appear to have about 10,000 hits per month.

My old statistics package, Site Meter, seems to miss a lot and even disappears visits after they've appeared.

I just added a new StatCounter. So far it shows far fewer hits than Blogger and is more in line with Site Meter. But I suspect neither of the non-Blogger statistics register hits from social media. So I'm not sure what my audience size is. It is puzzling to me.

Of course, it is quite possible that my failure to use Facebook and Twitter has handicapped me in getting an audience. Or it may be an additional issue. I may be a blogosaur!